Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Dr. Nirmit Kothari, Associate Chief Medical Officer at Baptist Memorial Hospital Memphis

Transcript

Dr. Nirmit Kothari, Associate Chief Medical Officer at Baptist Memorial Hospital Memphis · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:02
  Every year, Becker's annual meeting brings health care
• 0:04
  leaders together to unpack the most pressing issues
• 0:07
  facing the industry.
• 0:08
  And every year, those conversations shift in profound
• 0:11
  and unexpected ways.
• 0:13
  This April, more than 3,500
• 0:15
  healthcare executives will return to Chicago for Becker's
• 0:18
  sixteenth Annual Meeting.
• 0:20
  Seven ninety five elite speakers will offer new
• 0:23
  lessons, new case studies, and predictions about what
• 0:26
  comes next.
• 0:27
  Join us April 13 through the sixteenth.
• 0:29
  For the agenda and event details, visit beckershospitalreview.com
• 0:34
  and click on the events tab in the
• 0:36
  upper right.
• 0:38
  Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
• 0:40
  My name is Chanel Bhangar. And today, I
• 0:42
  have the pleasure of speaking with doctor Nirmi
• 0:44
  Kathari,
• 0:46
  the associate chief medical officer at Baptist Memorial
• 0:49
  Hospital in Memphis, who joins the podcast today
• 0:51
  to share insights into his background, health care
• 0:54
  trends, who's keeping an eye on, and a
• 0:55
  bit more.
• 0:56
  Doctor Kathari, thank you so much for joining
• 0:58
  me. No. Thank you for having me. I
• 1:00
  appreciate you and the Becker's team. I'm excited
• 1:02
  to be here. Perfect. Perfect. Well, let's just
• 1:05
  jump right in. To get us started, could
• 1:06
  you please introduce yourself and tell us a
• 1:08
  bit about Baptist Memorial Hospital?
• 1:10
  Certainly.
• 1:11
  So, yes, I as you mentioned earlier, I'm
• 1:13
  Nirmid Kothari. I'm associate chief medical officer at
• 1:16
  Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
• 1:19
  It's a 600 plus bed tertiary care facility.
• 1:23
  We're also the flagship hospital for Baptist Memorial
• 1:25
  Healthcare
• 1:27
  Corporation,
• 1:28
  which, as of now has, about 25 hospitals,
• 1:32
  multiple,
• 1:33
  primary care clinics as well as subspecialty clinics,
• 1:36
  our nursing school. And as of, two years
• 1:39
  ago, we started our medical school as well,
• 1:41
  and we sell community across across West Tennessee,
• 1:44
  East Arkansas, North Mississippi.
• 1:46
  Perfect. Thank you so much for the introduction.
• 1:48
  And now getting into the meat of the
• 1:50
  podcast a bit. Moving into 2026
• 1:52
  now, what trends are you currently watching at
• 1:54
  your system?
• 1:56
  I think first and foremost
• 1:58
  is just the continuous growth of technology and
• 2:02
  integration of that into our daily workflow,
• 2:05
  our technical decision making, particularly
• 2:07
  AI or artificial intelligence and
• 2:10
  predictive analytics. It is gonna continue to it
• 2:13
  has changed and will continue to shape our
• 2:15
  patient interaction, as I mentioned, clinical decision making,
• 2:20
  clinicians documentation workflow,
• 2:22
  moving away from or at least, more and
• 2:25
  more integration of, ambient tools and documentation as
• 2:28
  well as
• 2:30
  the analytic tools, which helps you tee up
• 2:32
  your notes,
• 2:34
  and,
• 2:34
  you know, acceleration
• 2:36
  or increased use of AI and research acceleration.
• 2:39
  So for clinicians,
• 2:42
  it means, more timely insight,
• 2:44
  and for patients, it's it could trans translate
• 2:47
  into more personalized experience.
• 2:50
  So that's, I think, one of the key
• 2:52
  trends that, we are watching. In addition to
• 2:55
  that,
• 2:56
  just the ongoing shift. And this is not
• 2:59
  new, but I think that's just an an
• 3:01
  an ongoing focus on and trend is
• 3:04
  more towards value based care. So as, we
• 3:06
  continue to shift towards that and,
• 3:09
  familiarize ourselves with alternative payment structure,
• 3:12
  a prime example for our, organization or at
• 3:15
  least my hospital is the CMS Teams model.
• 3:17
  So it's a it's a mandatory
• 3:20
  program,
• 3:21
  and we are one of the facilities which
• 3:23
  will be piloting the Teams,
• 3:25
  model,
• 3:26
  of OVR. And we will be bundled into
• 3:29
  that Teams model,
• 3:31
  for next few years. So, you know, just
• 3:33
  just that it will be an ongoing trend
• 3:35
  as, you know, move away from fee for
• 3:36
  service to value based care.
• 3:39
  I think other key trend or the focus
• 3:41
  area would be workforce sustainability.
• 3:44
  So not just the, you know, the recruitment
• 3:46
  piece, but retention piece,
• 3:49
  continuing to,
• 3:50
  have innovative staffing models,
• 3:53
  with the help of technology,
• 3:56
  as well as how
• 3:58
  much more we can integrate ourselves in our
• 4:00
  community to pool,
• 4:03
  individuals who are interested in health care,
• 4:06
  making sure they they get through the appropriate,
• 4:09
  you know, the the training, education, and they're
• 4:12
  able to be absorbed in our in in,
• 4:14
  absorbed locally
• 4:16
  so that we can continue to have next
• 4:17
  generation of health care providers.
• 4:20
  And then the last thing, which we would
• 4:22
  be focused on, and I think across the
• 4:25
  border, we will be focused on, is as
• 4:27
  we
• 4:28
  leverage technology,
• 4:29
  train the the health care providers,
• 4:32
  and move towards value based care, we have
• 4:34
  to do it, keeping in mind the financial
• 4:36
  stability,
• 4:38
  in in mind. So how do we maintain
• 4:40
  that financial stability as we continue to forward
• 4:43
  resources into various areas?
• 4:46
  Got it. Got it. And now moving forward
• 4:48
  and looking ahead into the future a bit,
• 4:50
  can you talk about either initiative or project
• 4:53
  or just something that you're most focused on
• 4:55
  and excited about at at this Memorial Hospital?
• 4:58
  Absolutely. So I think our focus coming out
• 5:00
  of COVID,
• 5:02
  huge focus was on our patient flow and
• 5:04
  efficiency and tie that with, tie that with
• 5:07
  patient experience.
• 5:08
  And I think that will remain our focus,
• 5:11
  in addition to
• 5:13
  the provider experience as well as the quality
• 5:15
  metrics. But I would say, really proud of
• 5:18
  what we have done over last two to
• 5:20
  three years, really about
• 5:22
  20% improvement in our patient flow and efficiency.
• 5:26
  And what that has done is not only
• 5:27
  it has improved our flow, but, that created
• 5:31
  additional capacity,
• 5:33
  which allowed us to grow,
• 5:35
  mostly double digit growth, past year,
• 5:38
  and it has also helped us improve our
• 5:40
  patient experience. So really proud of that. Also,
• 5:43
  not just proud of the results we achieved,
• 5:45
  it's
• 5:45
  how we achieved those results. And that required,
• 5:49
  systemic efforts, organic thinking,
• 5:51
  and changing the culture, connecting our our flow
• 5:55
  efforts with quality and outcomes,
• 5:58
  establishing,
• 5:59
  daily routines,
• 6:00
  moving away from looking at
• 6:03
  lagging indicators to really leading metrics that we
• 6:05
  can,
• 6:07
  talk at individual
• 6:08
  unit and department level,
• 6:10
  but also keeping in mind that they are
• 6:12
  connected to the overall facility objectives. So just
• 6:15
  by by doing that, we were able to
• 6:17
  create create more clarity,
• 6:20
  actionable data,
• 6:22
  real time,
• 6:23
  data, and that helped us build that momentum
• 6:25
  that we were able to, see these improvements
• 6:28
  in our patient plan efficiency.
• 6:30
  I think, along those lines, it was also
• 6:34
  important for us to and we are really
• 6:35
  proud of,
• 6:37
  the gains we have made in terms of
• 6:38
  our clinicians engage clinician engagement and alignment.
• 6:43
  We have seen now year over year improvement,
• 6:45
  last three years in a row, and I
• 6:47
  think this is more important when,
• 6:50
  at least from,
• 6:51
  the the vendor that we use to get
• 6:54
  our results,
• 6:55
  they are seeing across, the country,
• 6:59
  decline in those engagement and alignment scores. So
• 7:02
  in in you know,
• 7:03
  keep that in mind as we have seen
• 7:05
  here all your improvements. We are really really
• 7:07
  proud of the improvements we have made. And,
• 7:11
  the last thing is I think workflow and
• 7:13
  efficiency and resulting impact on capacity
• 7:17
  has yielded growth and strong financial performance. So
• 7:20
  really proud of I think those three things
• 7:22
  are improvement in flow and efficiency, growth and
• 7:25
  financial performance, and then, clinicians as well as
• 7:28
  patient engagement.
• 7:30
  Absolutely. So a lot of exciting things happening
• 7:32
  and a lot to be proud of at
• 7:34
  Baptist Memorial Health.
• 7:36
  Could you maybe expand more on that and
• 7:38
  share a little bit about what went into
• 7:40
  making all these initiatives happen?
• 7:43
  I think as I said, just,
• 7:46
  you know, a lot of our focus now
• 7:48
  is
• 7:49
  daily work, building that muscle memory, creating,
• 7:52
  systems and processes
• 7:54
  with the focus on
• 7:56
  what do we need to do today to
• 7:58
  have good results at the end of the
• 7:59
  month, at the end of the year. So
• 8:02
  and also breaking it down to the unit
• 8:04
  and department level so that,
• 8:07
  then I'll a good example would be,
• 8:10
  you know, what is an observed or expected
• 8:12
  readmission rate or length of stay mean to
• 8:14
  a bedside nurse.
• 8:16
  So we we wanted to break it down
• 8:18
  to something that a bedside nurse or a
• 8:20
  bedside clinician can relate to and also create
• 8:23
  kind of daily work for them, daily goal
• 8:25
  for them. And that has helped us drive
• 8:27
  a lot of these results. So definitely proud
• 8:29
  of that.
• 8:31
  Other things that we're I'm really proud of
• 8:33
  is,
• 8:34
  you know, engaging the frontline staff
• 8:37
  and getting their input to come up with
• 8:40
  solutions to our our challenges. So rather than
• 8:44
  putting the cookie cutter solution that works somewhere
• 8:46
  else, we have a process where we we
• 8:49
  review those things, but really come up and
• 8:51
  ask our staff that, you know, you know
• 8:53
  the workflow. This is the result we wanna
• 8:55
  see. Help us design a solution.
• 8:58
  And a good example of that is, you
• 9:00
  know, for this large hospital, we we struggled
• 9:03
  with the concept of geographic rounding and a
• 9:06
  true true multidisciplinary,
• 9:09
  multidisciplinary
• 9:10
  meeting. But we've been able to find a
• 9:12
  solution that worked for us, which we call
• 9:14
  it dispo
• 9:15
  disposition expo,
• 9:17
  where we pool, the the hospitalist,
• 9:20
  case management,
• 9:22
  nursing staff, ancillary staff in one room for
• 9:24
  30
• 9:25
  and really have a good care plan of
• 9:28
  at least sixty to eighty percent of our
• 9:29
  patients on the med surg floor. So, really,
• 9:32
  kind of think coming up with innovative solutions,
• 9:35
  but really rather than solutions designed kind of
• 9:38
  top down approach, it's a bottom up approach.
• 9:40
  And that
• 9:41
  has worked really well to the point when
• 9:43
  we rolled it out. Some of the naysayers,
• 9:45
  they were the first one to say, hey.
• 9:46
  How how quickly can we expand this this
• 9:49
  experiment?
• 9:50
  So that those things have certainly helped. And
• 9:52
  then other thing we're really proud of is
• 9:55
  using the data and,
• 9:58
  looking at the pattern
• 9:59
  and identifying and being proactive. So over the
• 10:03
  years, we know we've we've struggled around holidays.
• 10:06
  This year, we took a different approach. We
• 10:08
  we strategically looked at, you know, what are
• 10:10
  the areas we struggle? What are the external
• 10:12
  factors that we have no control on versus
• 10:14
  what can we do internally?
• 10:16
  And we deployed that whether it's knowing, you
• 10:19
  know, which facilities will be accepting patient, which
• 10:21
  pharmacies would be open over the on the
• 10:23
  holidays.
• 10:24
  But just pulling all those resources together and,
• 10:27
  disseminating those to each unit level
• 10:31
  helped us really,
• 10:32
  maintain our patient flow and patient experience through
• 10:35
  during these holidays,
• 10:37
  as well as allowed us to have optimized
• 10:40
  optimal staff rather than getting into significant number
• 10:43
  of ED holds
• 10:44
  and unsafe patient conditions. So we're really proud
• 10:46
  of those, those things that we have done
• 10:48
  over the last two, three years.
• 10:50
  That's amazing to hear. And now health care
• 10:53
  is evolving rapidly. And with that and all
• 10:55
  of your experience, I'm curious to know what
• 10:57
  advice do you have for the next generation
• 10:59
  of health care leaders stepping into the field
• 11:01
  today?
• 11:03
  Boy, that I it's a tough question. But
• 11:05
  I I think, you know, I would say,
• 11:08
  for me, the the few things that
• 11:11
  are most important,
• 11:13
  for any health care leader,
• 11:15
  is
• 11:17
  in this day and age is to be
• 11:18
  humble, be authentic, and be visible. I think
• 11:21
  people remember how you show up, and I
• 11:23
  think sometimes you might not be
• 11:25
  providing any new ideas, but just your presence
• 11:28
  there,
• 11:29
  makes the the team feel supported.
• 11:32
  So I think,
• 11:33
  you know, that's that's a very important aspect
• 11:36
  for any health care leader. And then, you
• 11:38
  know, continuing to build relationships.
• 11:40
  You know, a lot of
• 11:41
  the problems I think if you wanna move
• 11:45
  away from just a firefighting mode to developing
• 11:48
  proactive solutions, that's where relationships matter.
• 11:51
  You know, once you someone trusts you, they
• 11:53
  will give you information that they would not
• 11:55
  have heard otherwise
• 11:57
  and would could have been a blind spot
• 11:59
  for you. So I think those are that's
• 12:01
  very important.
• 12:03
  I think
• 12:04
  embrace technology, but trust your frontline. So technology
• 12:07
  is great. I think it but it's a
• 12:09
  great tool. The best ideas would often come
• 12:12
  from
• 12:13
  your frontline individuals, those who are closest to
• 12:15
  the work, and use technology as a tool.
• 12:19
  I would say communicate,
• 12:20
  communicate, and communicate again.
• 12:22
  So it's just the timely, repeated, and consistent
• 12:25
  communication,
• 12:27
  because I think that adds a lot of
• 12:29
  clarity.
• 12:31
  And I think, to me, it's not the
• 12:33
  information you are communicating or what information you
• 12:35
  are communicating. It's the time at which you're
• 12:37
  communicating. So the same information, which has no
• 12:41
  value,
• 12:42
  three days from today would be extremely valuable
• 12:44
  today. Right? So the timing of your communication.
• 12:47
  And the last thing is just be ready
• 12:49
  for,
• 12:50
  opportunities as they show up. In my life,
• 12:52
  I think the biggest opportunities that have come
• 12:54
  up to me, I was not looking for
• 12:55
  those. They just were presented.
• 12:57
  So be ready to look at those. Keep
• 12:59
  your skills sharp and mindset open. I think
• 13:02
  those are some of the few things I
• 13:04
  have for, any leaders.
• 13:07
  Thank you. Thank you. Well, that's excellent advice
• 13:08
  and a great spot to end on. Doctor
• 13:10
  Kothari, I wanna thank you once again for
• 13:12
  your time today and for sharing your insights
• 13:13
  on the Becker's Healthcare podcast. Thank you so
• 13:15
  much. My pleasure. Thank you, Chanel.